Johann Villalvir, a recent graduate, stood in the union with senior Sesan Oladimeji with one calling card and free candy for bypassers.
“Do you have a meal plan?”
Last year, Villalvir and Oladimeji were inspired by Airbnb and wanted to come up with a website that drew parallels to it. Their first idea was to sell things like surf boards, snowboards and so on.
But that idea didn’t last long as the two wanted to localize their website to gain the attention of students on campus.
“We realized that was a logistical nightmare,” Villalvir said. “So, we just decided to make it a market we can control.”
It was over the summer that sirtortuga.com was born. The website is essentially a list of goods that are found in all Residential Dining Services at IU, and it shows the original price of that item, and then 40 percent off that price.
Students without I-Bucks can put in a request for a certain item, allowing students with I-Bucks to go out and purchase that item. Students without I-Bucks will pay the retriever via credit or debit card, and it will only charge that student when their request is accepted.
The two can communicate through the website’s messaging board, or via email since notifications of requests go through email. After the student purchases the item with their Crimson Card, the student swipes it for 60 percent off, but are being paid for 40 percent off, thus making an additional $1.50 for each request they accept. In turn, the students without I-Bucks are saving money for getting the items for 40 percent off.
“We didn’t focus on just to sell it or just to buy it,” Oladimeji said. “We tried to focus on something that students actually care about. This is a way to get both parties using each other. It’s a two-way market.”
The website is free to sign up, and although it requires putting in credit card information, Oladimeji and Villalvir don’t charge any fees throughout any process of the website.
To help ensure the security of the credit card information, they installed Stripe, which is a web application that allows merchants to accept credit card payments through their websites that does not charge any setup fees, monthly fees or monthly minimum fees.
“Once the user puts in their card information, Stripe basically encrypts all the information that goes across the web, which makes it more secure and more private,” Oladimeji said.
Oladimeji, a computer science major, used computer programming to design and set up the website. It took roughly 10 months to complete and the “finished” product was completed around September. Finished is in quotes because Oladimeji said there is always room for improvement and updates every day to better the website.
Villavir and Oladimeji have spent the last month setting up tables across campus and getting students’ attention with those six words, “Do you have a meal plan?”
That day in the Indiana Memorial Union, Villavir asked that question to a student and after she responded with yes, he followed up with, “Would you like to make money by buying food for other people?”
The student’s eyes lit up as she said, “How do you do that?”
Villavir explained the process, and she signed up.
In the hour the two spent repeating that process, they got about 20 people to sign up for the program.
“The ones that are using it right now seem pretty comfortable with it,” Oladimeji said. “It seems like a lot of people are interested and like what’s it about. The goal right now is to have more people benefit from this, get feedback and keep improving it to try and help out students.”
